Quality Assessment of Complementary Food Produced Using Fermentation and Roasting Methods

This study aimed at assessing the quality of complementary food made from corn, millet and soybean using roasting and fermentation methods. There were two different compositions from each of the method. The functional properties, chemical composition, protein quality and sensory attributes of the formulated diets were determined and the results were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and means were separated by Duncan multiple range tests. The difference between the control and the test diets was determined by t-test (P<0.05). Results showed that there was significant difference in the water absorption and swelling capacity but the bulk density of the samples were not significantly different at P<0.05. There was significant difference (P<0.05) in the chemical composition of the test diets. The fermented complementary food had higher moisture content (7.2-8.2 %), crude fiber (14.0-19.8%), fat (12.3-12.6%) and protein (14.6-16.9%) while roasted samples was high in ash (2.3-3.2%), carbohydrate (50.0-52.8%) and energy (351.8-368.7%). The feed efficiency ratio of the control group was low (8.2) while the groups on roasted samples had higher feed conversion ratio (12.6 and 14.5). The PER of the test samples were comparable to PER for regular diet and the result of t-test showed that the regular diet was not significantly different from the test diets at P<0.05. Furthermore, the results of sensory evaluation showed that there was no significant difference in the sensory quality of the test diets. The potential of roasted complementary food and fermented complementary food in meeting infant nutritional need was comparable.